Day by Day
by Istalri
Summary: Since returning from Narnia, Susan has struggled to piece her world back together. But as she quickly discovers, healing is a progress that happens day by day. OneShot Susan-centric


Not often does one find true love. Not lust, not ordinary, everyday love, but true love. It's the type of love that only one out of a million finds. Susan Pevensie happened to be that one.

It wasn't a blessed love, a love that makes you twirl around and want to sing. Instead it was a cursed love, a forbidden love, a love that tears the heart in two. Susan Pevensie wasn't lucky to have found that sort of love.

It wasn't as if Susan could do much about how her heart felt. No matter how much she tried, she still couldn't will her heart not to love Caspian. It was impossible, a fool's errand. And yet, Susan was still determined to try.

In the early morning, when the sun's golden rays would began to tickle her face gently and her eyelids would pop open to reveal her surroundings, thoughts of Caspian would instantly bombard her mind. It was almost as if those thoughts lay siege on her, waiting till the opportune moment and then striking when Susan was unawares! No matter how many defenses she lay around her mind and heart, they always disintegrated her barriers in no time at all. But clinging to her only defense, Susan would always manage to piece together her walls yet again.

After preparing breakfast for her siblings, she would gather her books and head to the nearest library. There, she would immerse herself into hundreds of years of past history. Learning about other people's mistakes somehow helped her forget the pain of her own error. Perhaps it was the fact that all the atrocities people in her book committed were so grave compared to her trivial error. Plotting the assassinations of rulers, murdering poor innocent children in their beds, beheading wives, all these were horrors indeed. So why then was an infinitesimal mistake like kissing Caspian continuing to haunt her every waking moment? Why was it when she closed her eyes she could still remember the gentle feel of Caspian's lips upon her own? And when she hugged one of her own siblings why could she only feel the touch of Caspian as he had nestled in her long hair? Perhaps Susan would never know, perhaps this one mistake would never cease tormenting her.

The afternoons were the longest for her. Most days Lucy would kidnap Susan for a few hours as they wandered around just talking. It was the talking that Susan dreaded the most. Astute Lucy never failed to come up with more tactics to get Susan to confide in her about Caspian. But no matter how firmly she had to do it; Susan always avoided that particular conversation. It wasn't that she didn't trust Lucy, she did. But Lucy's questions and insights cracked holes in her barriers that she had oh-so carefully placed around herself. And then those minute holes grew bigger as more doubts and questions she didn't want to think about to began to pop up in her mind and pepper her defenses. Soon, Susan would be back where she started. She would be a quivering mess, untrusting, and unreachable. She would be forced to begin to heal all over, placing more scabs upon the open wounds of her heart. Perhaps if this cycle kept up, her heart would be one lump of a scab, hard and seemingly unbreakable. However, Susan knew that all scabs had to fall off sometime. And as much as the thought of her newly healed heart being someday exposed once more to the emotions of life scared her, the thought of her heart being healed gave her hope. And hope was a feeling that Susan hadn't felt in a long time.

Evenings saw her and Peter meeting together. Susan and Peter had always been close. It was part of the territory that came with being older siblings together. Since they had been little, evenings were their time together. These evenings were especially important now that their father was still fighting the war and their mother was in America on vacation and the two older Pevensies had essentially become the parents to the two younger Pevensie. These evenings were their time to talk and enlighten each other as to what the day had held for the both of them. Often the two would go to a nearby park and sit on the bench while watching little children play upon the swings. Smelling the sweet evening breeze and hearing the laughter of children always made a happy feeling bubble up from somewhere deep down inside of her. Such evenings had always made her day, but since the Pevensies' return from Narnia, Susan found herself pulling away from Peter and their time together. The reason wasn't the same as the one for avoiding Lucy's talks. No, this was an entirely different matter. Ever since their talk with Aslan, Susan could sense a calm feeling about Peter. It didn't seem to bother him at all that they weren't going back. Susan knew that of course he was sad about their restriction, but it seemed that Peter had moved on and accepted their fate awfully fast. It made her wonder why it had been so easy for Peter to simply embrace the fact that they weren't going back… ever. Why was she simply tolerating the _idea_? Why did her heart think perhaps someday, somehow, they might find their way back to Narnia? Was it really so hard for her heart to accept what her mind knew?

Some nights, the time before bed was claimed by Edmund. He was the only one out of all of Susan's siblings whose sole reason for seeking her out was _not_ to get her to talk about Caspian and Narnia. Whenever he sought her out, it was usually because he was bored. While the fact that Susan was simply a cure for boredom didn't exactly thrill her, it was comforting still just talking about idle things and doing idle things. However, the idle things usually turned into weird and rather stupid things. A few nights ago, Edmund had somehow convinced her that it would be a good idea sneak out her window with him so they could dance in the rain. Interestingly enough, it _was_ a good idea… till they tried to get back in the house and discovered that the door was locked and that Peter and Lucy had decided that that night they were going to be heavy sleepers. Needless to say, Susan was not very happy at all that she and Edmund had to spend the night outside in the pouring rain. But however mad she'd been at the time, she had to admit it took her mind off of everything she'd been thinking about and it gave her relief from those festering thoughts that still persisted in bothering her. The time Susan spent with Edmund was certainly never boring.

Perhaps the reason that she so enjoyed spending her late evenings with Edmund was it managed to prolong the time till she must bid good night to her siblings and head off to bed. Once Susan turned off the light and slipped under her sheets, then all the emotions she'd held back during the day came flooding out. It was a weird feeling, the feeling of so many different emotions at once and Susan almost couldn't bear it. The thoughts, the feelings, the raw emotions, they were all swirling around her. They pressed down on her body, making her feel like she was being smothered with a heavy sheet. She would lie quivering in bed, shaking from the panic of all the different feelings, hoping and praying that her body would relax and she would be able to drift off to sleep. But sleep would not be claimed without a battle. Tossing and turning, Susan still fought to will herself to calm down. But once her emotions started on their rampage, it was almost impossible to stop them. After hours of battle with herself, Susan would drop off to sleep from sheer exhaustion. But it was not a pleasant sleep. No, it was anything but. It was a restless sleep and it was filled with disturbing dreams. In some dreams, Susan relived kissing Caspian. She felt her arms wrap around his neck, her hands bury themselves in his soft hair, and her eyes slowly close as she gently placed her lips upon his. Susan felt Caspian's lips caress her own as the kiss deepened and then as she slowly tried to break the kiss, she suddenly found she couldn't. She pulled harder, trying to break free of Caspian's mouth, but their lips were stuck like glue! Quickly, Susan placed her hands against the prince's chest and pushed with all her might. With a ripping sound, their lips came lose and then everything went black as the sound of their lips ripping apart echoed through her head.

With the ripping sound still ringing in her ears, a new dream would fade in. Often it wasn't a dream that had a plot, but rather gray pictures and moving figures cloaked in swirling, white mist. The white witch sneering, Caspian smiling, Aslan roaring, Peter charging on his horse; these all floated in and out of focus before her eyes. Susan heard the clanging of battle, the murmurs of the public as she kissed Caspian, the whoosh of the griffins' wings as they soared into the night. She could smell the acrid smoke of the army's campfires, the tangy smell of blood as the battle raged on, the warm forest smell of Caspian as she clung to him. As the night wore on, more visions appeared to her, but always right before dawn, a clear image of Caspian looking at her pushed all the others away. The prince was always smiling at her and his perfect features upon his face made Susan lift her arm and try to caress them. But as she did, a tugging feeling would begin to pull her away from the dream world and into the waking world where she must once again face the emotions, the thoughts, and the pain of going through another day while wondering if she'd ever be whole again.

**Fin.**

Author's Note- So, this is my first fic. I'd really like to know how you all liked it and if there's anything I could improve on. Did you like it, hate it? Let me know ) And a big thanks to my wonderful friend and beta reader, Lemon Yellow Crayon! All of her comments were extremely helpful as I was proof-reading this.


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